DUI leads to potential loss of children

LAKE COUNTY – Michaelanne Goen will not lose contact with her two young girls, even though she plead guilty to felony child endangerment in July.

Goen made a bad decision in 2012 that cost her time, a court record, and the chance she’d lose contact with her children when she put her toddlers in a car unrestrained and drove through a stop sign, entered Highway 93 and was struck by oncoming traffic.

The incident occurred Nov. 8, 2012, when Goen, also unrestrained, was ejected from her own car through the driver’s side front window and landed about 15 feet away, according to Lake County Court records.

Though both girls remained inside the vehicle, one was “severely” injured and both were transported to the hospital, court records said.

Montana Highway Patrol troopers said if the car’s occupants were properly restrained, none of them would be injured, court records said.

Once at the hospital, the trooper said the defendant smelled “overwhelmingly of an alcoholic beverage.”

The trooper asked Goen how much she drank prior to the accident and she said “a lot,” court records said.

Goen had a blood alcohol level of .17, more than twice the legal limit.

When she was ordered to court, Goen failed to appear, which prompted a judge to issue a warrant for her arrest.

She was arrested, returned to the Lake County court system in March 2014 and released on a $50,000 bond.

Though the Lake County attorney’s office requested a no-contact order with her children, Goen’s defender told Judge Deborah Kim Christopher that Goen, her husband and kids were all living together.

Goen accepted a plea deal on two counts of felony criminal endangerment in July and was sentenced Oct. 23.

Both counts earned her 3 years in the Department of Corrections with all that time deferred, and both counts will run concurrently to one another.